PERSONALITY TYPES

(Click for AUDIO VERSION)To use this segment in a Radio broadcast or Podcast, send TIM a request.

You will undoubtedly encounter many different types of personalities in the work place, each with their own unique blend of nuances. But there are four basic types of personalities from which they are based, which is commonly referred to as A, B, C, and D. Although volumes have been written on such personality traits, here is a synopsis:

Type “A” Personality – Is a highly independent and driven personality, typically representing the leaders in business. They are blunt, competitive, no-nonsense types who like to get to the point. They are also strong entrepreneurial spirits (risk takers). As such, they embrace change and are always looking for practical solutions for solving problems.

Type “B” Personality – Represents highly extroverted people who love the spotlight. Because of this, they are very entertaining and possess strong charisma (everyone likes to be around them). Small wonder these people are sales and marketing types. They thrive on entertaining people and are easily hurt if they cannot sway someone (such as “bombing” on stage).

Type “C” Personality – The antithesis of Type “B”; they are introverted detailists as represented by such people as accountants, programmers, and engineers. They may have trouble communicating to other people, but are a whirlwind when it comes to crunching numbers or writing program code. They tend to be very cautious and reserved, and will not venture into something until after all the facts have been checked out.

Type “D” Personality – Is best characterized as those people who resist any form of change and prefer the tedium of routine, such as in clerical assignments. They are not adventurous, resist responsibility and prefer to be told what to do.

It is not uncommon to find people with a blend of personalities, particularly A-B and C-D, but these basic personality types explain why some people work well together and others do not. For example Type-A clashes with Type-D simply because one is more adventurous than the other, and Type-B clashes with Type-C as one exhibits an extroverted personality and the other is introverted. Conversely, Type-A works well with Type-B, and Type-C works well with Type-D.

The leveling factor between these different personality types is Common Courtesy which will be the subject of another article.

10 Responses to “PERSONALITY TYPES”

“I have a different point of view Tim. There are almost as many different personalities as there are people. Everyone is unique.
Somewhere in the past we coined a phrase called the “average person”. I have been looking for one of these for a long time and in at least 50 of my almost 70 years have not found a single one of them.

For almost 20 years I operated a custom woodworking shop. I built things of wood for customers that wanted something they had in mind to build. Once a lady asked me to make a “blue nose” When I asked her why. her answer made perfect sense. Her father was a sailor, and there exist a publication called “The Bluenose” and she had purchased a subscription to the magazine and the wooden blue nose was a advance notice that she was sending this to him. You could not classify this as average.

Many times I was asked to make a chair for a customer. And my starting process was to have then lay down on a clean sheet of brown paper in the sitting position, then I did a trace and then had them stand and I took more measurements. I never found two people of the same size. But all who had a chair made by me., loved them because they fit.

My mother was 4 feet 6 and normal kitchen cabinets caused to strain to work on the counter tops but most cabinet maker only make cabinets for the “average person” (one size fits all).

Vought aircraft, I tried placing people into categories and found that I missed on my goal many times because I could not fit all the people in to the few categories that I chose.

I wonder how much the world has suffered by placing people into categories.

Now about me,,,I loved my jobs, loved to interact with the people I worked with, was always conscious about improvement and did my best to make the work place better for everyone. (mostly behind the scenes without fanfare) I know not to intrude in to other folks lives without their asking my help. And most of all I care about the folks I work with, I am an introvert when listening and an extrovert when helping. Under which of the 4 personalities would you classify me? LOL.

By the way have you noticed that lately we have more introverts in the work place than extroverts and that the will to work hard has diminished? Is there less respect for the employer today than 20 years ago?

Oh, I know it depends on the company, Larger companies tend to be more aloft from the people than smaller ones. Do you think this because they don’t want to deal with personalities and make the rule to govern the average person? (Grin)

Keep up the writin’ and the talk’n my friend, I enjoy what you have to say, I causes me to think!!!”

“I’m definitely a blend of type A-B. I know when I worked as a manager we had to do these personality tests–to show us what kind of manager personality we had. I was “ruthless” as my director coined it!! LOLOL!”

[…] which is the right path for you to follow, big or small? It ultimately depends on your personality; whereas you see more Type A and B personalities in small businesses (who exhibit entrepreneurial […]

[…] will understand a few things; first, the personality types in his work force (A, B, C, and D); (see “Personality Types”). More importantly, the shrink will form an opinion on the workers collectively in terms of their […]

[…] will understand a few things; first, the personality types in his work force (A, B, C, and D); (see “Personality Types”). More importantly, the shrink will form an opinion on the workers collectively in terms of their […]